HC Deb 19 July 1901 vol 97 cc972-4

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

MR. TULLY (Leitrim, S.) moved that the Bill be read a second time this day three months. It was, he explained, promoted by a syndicate with an American millionaire at its head, which had for its object the capture of all locomotion in London. The present scheme was a proposal for a tram with overhead wires running from Hendon to London, and a petition had been presented against it by a number of residents in the district whose frontages were affected by it, and who, under it, were to get no compensation for the severance of their lands. This was an invasion of private rights never before attempted in a private Bill in this House, and for it they were indebted to the American millionaire, Mr. Yerkes. The people who objected to the Bill would not object to a tube railway, but they did protest against having a tram running along a very narrow road with overhead wires so close to their houses. Serious accidents had occurred there from in Dublin and in Liverpool, and at the latter place thirty people had been injured. Now, he thought the promoters of the Bill ought to give them some reasonable guarantees that the local residents should not suffer unnecessary hardships by reason of the promotion of the Bill, and that the American principle of taking other people's property without paying its full value should not be introduced in a private Bill in this House. He warned the promoters that the Bill would be strongly opposed before the Committee.

Amendment proposed— To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day three months.' "—(Mr. Tully).

Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

MR. CALDWELL (Lanarkshire, Mid)

said that it was his duty officially and formally to move these Bills. The promoters usually got some member of the House to represent their views, and in this case he understood the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool occupied that position.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)

denied that he had any responsibility for the Bill. He had heard it suggested that the tramways would seriously interfere with the business prospects of an excellent firm of Irishmen who ran a line of 'buses, and that appealed to the sympathetic side of his nature. But, on the other hand, he was told that the people of Hendon, through their local representative, stated that they were extremely anxious to be brought into closer and cheaper connection with the rest of London, and for that reason he was afraid he would have to abandon the cause of his countrymen and support that of the Hendon people.

SIR E. DURNING-LAWRENCE (Cornwall, Truro)

pointed out that these trams would afford facilities for working men to live at Hendon and to go to their work in other parts, and would thus supply a long-felt want.

MR. FLAVIN (Kerry, N.)

asked for an assurance that the Bill would go before a Committee upstairs, where these questions could be threshed out.

MR. SPEAKER

There is a petition against it, and so it will go before a Committee upstairs in ordinary course.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed.